When creating a universe, words are important. Names have to seem natural, especially new names. It’s the reason I put down most modern fantasy epics. Their names are just badly copied from Tolkien’s works, who was a linguist and understood the nature of words and how they evolve. I’m not writing a fantasy epic, but I am creating a universe distinct from the one I live in. A world without Germany, for instance. A world where sushi bars a populated by non-Japanese because Japanese people are acutely ashamed of their culture. A world of super heroes that aren’t made by radioactive accidents. They aren’t popping all of a sudden, but have been scattered throughout humanity since Genesis, showing themselves as pagan gods, mythical creatures, and fairy tales. I’m tired of calling them super heroes because a) it’s lame and b) not all of them are super heroes. A small percentage end up donning the required cape, yet 50% of the human population is made up with people who have “talents.” They may be small talents, useless or annoying aberrations, so innocuous that they may be passed off as normal gifts. Their blood says otherwise, though. So I need a name for this parallel human species and mutants is taken.

I tried “Capes,” but the cape requirement only came in the mid-50s as part of the ranking system, and it feels artificial. “Masks” feels equally silly. I thought I had it last week with “Aberrations,” Abbies for short. But that sounds silly, too. It feels more natural, so I’m on the right track, but I also have Alphas, a rank within the super heroes, which could make things confusing. So then I thought, gosh, where do our words come from? Well, what would scientists call this species? Here’s what I came up with:

This is probably another dead end. I just wanted to put out some ideas and see if they clicked somehow. Knowing the scientific name most likely won’t lead me to the vernacular designation, but it might help. I guess. Besides, I don’t think Gaelic will work in this case. It makes sense for the name of the major city to derive from a Gaelic word since it was founded by fleeing Celts, but that logic doesn’t expand to nick-names for a long-present aspect of society. I don’t know. It’s really early. Maybe I’ll dream the right answer.